


You Go to My Head

by springstorms



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Bickering, F/M, First Kiss, Valentine's Day, nervous harry wells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:42:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29457672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/springstorms/pseuds/springstorms
Summary: You and Harry spend a late Valentine's day night tinkering in the lab.
Relationships: Earth-2 Harrison "Harry" Wells/Reader, Earth-2 Harrison "Harry" Wells/You
Kudos: 24





	You Go to My Head

**Author's Note:**

> I don't normally write fics that are a character/reader but I've recently been having a resurgence of love for Harry and wanted to write something short for V-day today! Title taken from the song of the same name by Billie Holiday :)

It's late. The lab is empty save for you and the lights are dim and cozy as you tinker with your latest project. You'd meant to go home and spend your Valentine's Day evening with some snacks and a reprieve from the constant adjustments you've been having to make to the power-absorbing weapon you were _still_ having trouble getting to work, but you'd gotten caught up in an idea, taking the gun half apart again in order to try and fix it.

You got like this sometimes, zoning in on a problem and being unable to stop working until you'd tried every single iteration of an idea you could. Cisco had started calling it your "Doc mode" after Doc in _Back to the Future_ because of how scattered you tended to get when you were in the middle of puzzling through something. When you'd protested he'd brought up all of the times you'd accidentally zapped yourself because you were too eager to keep tinkering than to grab gloves. Maybe he did have a point. As if to undercut this thought, you pull at a wire and it zaps your finger, making you wince and suck on the burn, using your other hand to turn down the jazz music playing softly from your phone.

You sigh and grab a bandaid. Maybe it's time to go home for the night. Everybody else had gone home much earlier with their own Valentine's plans, trying their hardest not to rub in just how single you were. Iris had even brought you a little box of chocolates before she left, giving it to you with a squeeze of your shoulders and a slightly sympathetic look that you could tell she was trying to hide.

You appreciated the gesture but you didn't particularly mind being single, especially because the one person who'd caught your eye as of late drove you slightly insane, anyway, even if your bickering had held much less bite lately than it had before. 

A clatter behind you makes you jump and grab your partially-dismantled gun, holding it aloft. Speak of the devil. " _Harry?"_

"Oh, I didn't think anyone else would be here. Hi, Y/N." 

"What are you doing here? How did I not hear you breach?" 

He nods to the music still playing. "Probably because of that? I wasn't trying to bother you. You should probably be more observant, though, I could've been a meta." 

"Why aren't you on Earth 2?" 

He sighs, running a hand through his already-messy dark hair. "Jessie had plans and Valentine's day is even more annoying on my Earth than here. I thought I'd get some work done."

"Ah, so you're one of those 'Valentine's day is just a vapid excuse for corporations to make money' types, huh?" 

He scowls. "It _is._ And you're the one here alone working this late, that's not exactly _celebrating…."_

"Yeah but I'm content to be doing this." You say defensively. 

He snorts. "Whatever you say. You're the one who's all dressed up." His eyes flick over your outfit, making you feel strangely self-conscious. 

"This is hardly _all dressed up._ " you say, glancing down at the red ensemble you'd put together that morning. "You're just incapable of wearing anything that isn't the same all-black outfit you wear every day." 

"It's functional." He glares.

"Okay, Steve Jobs." 

"Except I don't _tinker_ with _cell phones."_ he wrinkles his nose.

"My mistake, _Einstein._ I'll only compare you to geniuses worthy of your intellect from now on." 

"It's the least you could do." He says, almost cracking a smile. 

You stare at each other for a moment, unsure where to go from here.

He clears his throat and starts to say "Well I'll just go and…" at the same time as you say hold up your gun and say "Could you have a look at this?" 

"Oh, alri-" he says as you say "Oh, it's fine, you don't have to…" 

You both fall silent. "I'll have a look." He says firmly, trying to shake off the awkwardness. He crosses the room over to you and leans over your shoulder to look at the gun. "What are you trying to change? The coils?" 

You nod, resolutely ignoring the way his breath tickles your ear. "I figured that if I just add the absorbing coils inside _and_ outside, that should be enough to keep it from overloading like usual. But I need to rewire most of it to get them to work." 

"May I?" He reaches over to gently take it from you, peering at your handiwork as he twists the gun this way and that. 

"Hm." He moves from behind you and pulls a stool up next to you, still squinting at the gun.

"What's 'hm'?" you ask. 

He doesn't say anything, just grabs a pair of tweezers and starts poking around. You fight the annoyance that threatens to show itself at his lack of an answer, reminding yourself that you're far too used to his work-mode to let it bother you. He grabs another pair of tweezers and starts pulling apart one of the sections you'd spent all night putting back together with the coils inside. "Um, what are you---?" you try.

He grunts but doesn't answer again, lower lip pulled between his teeth. "Harry, you don't have to take the whole thing apart to understand what I changed, you can just ask…"

"That's not why I'm taking it apart." He says abruptly, his startlingly blue eyes finally snapping back to yours. 

"Oh, um, then why are you--"

"Because you messed it up." He says matter-of-factly. "Pass me that screwdriver." 

You glare and hand him the screwdriver, ignoring the way his fingers brush against yours when he takes it. "I didn't mess it up." 

"You did. The coils shouldn't be wrapped around the skeleton the way they are, they should be in little bundles. That way you don't have to do nearly as much protective layering." 

"Yeah, but the energy is less evenly distributed that way. I'm not opposed to it taking longer to make." 

"Well are you opposed to less energy absorbing through all of those layers of protective metal?"

You scowl. "You don't have to be condescending." 

"Well, you don't have to be allergic to constructive criticism." 

"That is _rich_ coming from you." You snap. "When have you _ever_ been amenable to even the slightest bit of advice from me? Or any of us?" 

"Not my fault you're usually wrong." he murmurs, putting a flashlight between his teeth as he continues to work. 

"And now you're getting saliva on my flashlight when you could just ask me to hold it." 

He smiles slightly around the flashlight but doesn't respond. You reach over and take it out of his mouth which seems to actually surprise him, his eyes widening slightly and tracking the movement of your hand. You gingerly hold the flashlight up as you looked for something to wipe it on. "Gross." 

"You chose to do that." He says, eyes once again focused intently back on the gun. 

"I'm not usually wrong." You say, referring to what he'd said before and wiping the flashlight on his sleeve.

"Eh. Fifty-fifty." 

You know that this is just him trying to get a rise out of you, are intimately familiar with his particular brand of patronization, but you can still feel the angry flush rising in your cheeks regardless. "Why do you belittle me so much? Do you like making me feel like too much of an idiot to work here?" 

Harry's hands go still but he doesn't look up, the lab dead-quiet except for Billie Holiday's crooning voice floating out of your phone. 

"If I thought you were an idiot I wouldn't make any effort to work with you at all."

"So you're a dick just because?"

His eyebrows furrow. "I'm not a dick. I thought we had a kind of...repoire." 

"There's a difference between friendly banter and making me feel too stupid to do my job, Harry. I think Cisco and Caitlin would back me up on this one." 

"You're not stupid, Y/N." He says, finally looking back up again. "I thought you knew that." 

You shrug, looking away. "Usually I do, but you have this way of making me forget." 

"Oh." His shoulders look tense and you know he's probably wishing that he could be anywhere else. "Well...in that case...I apologize."

"Holy shit, a bonafide Wells apology? I never thought I'd see the day." You say, an attempt at levity. You actually hadn't expected an apology and you appreciated it, knowing that this kind of thing was far from his strong suit. "Thank you, though." You say quietly. "I'm sorry too." 

"For what?" 

"I haven't been the nicest to you, either." You say. "Especially when you first got here. It's just...the other Wells. You know." 

"Yeah, I do." He frowns and his metal tweezers clack loudly.

A soft Chet Baker song begins to play and you let it fill the silence, leaning your head on your hand as you watch him work. "I can finish, if you want." you say softly. "I know you came here with your own work to do." 

He sighs. "I came here for a distraction. This is as good as any." 

You yawn. "Alright, but I have to facilitate as long as you're working on this." 

He raises an eyebrow. "Fine." 

An hour later you're barely hanging on, head pillowed in your arms as you watch him work. He'd been working steadily the entire time, even humming along to a few of the songs under his breath. The low rumble of his humming had only served to make you sleepier and you were fighting to keep your eyes open. You let them shut for a few moments, drifting more than actually sleeping, and when you open them again Harry's hands aren't moving and he's looking down at you instead of the gun, expression soft with something like fondness. 

His gaze leaves yours as soon as your eyes fully open and he tries to look busy, pushing his glasses further up on his nose. "It's late."

"It was late when you got here." You point out, raising your arms above your head in a stretch. 

He glances back at you as you do so, eyes darting down your body. "Yeah…" He says, fiddling with the screwdriver. 

You lean in to look at the gun, flipping it over. "Wow, it's almost done. I think we can probably save the rest for tomorrow." 

"Just one more…" he trails off, grabbing at a stray wire with his hand. 

"You're gonna shock yourself if you aren't more careful." You say around another yawn.

"No I'm n---" a bright flash fills the room and he curses, yanking his hand back. "Shit." He hisses.

You smirk with an unspoken _I told you so_ and grab a band-aid from the pack you already have out, grabbing his hand to wrap it around his finger. He seems surprised by this too but lets you with only a grumbled "It's a tiny burn." in protest. His cheeks seem slightly red but you chalk it up to the dim lighting of the room. 

You take your time wrapping his finger even though it should only take a few seconds, unable to help yourself. His fingers are warm and calloused. 

"Y/N." He says quietly, sounding slightly lost.

"Hm?" You look up, letting his hand drop. 

"Nothing." He says, pulling his hand back. "You should get home." 

"I probably should." You agree, not moving. 

He gets to his feet instead, shuffling the tools together so the worktable is slightly less disorganized. You stand too. "Could you grab my phone?" You ask. 

He reaches over to grab it, pausing the music and handing it over silently. The absence of the music makes everything sound a million times louder than it did before, particularly your own breathing. "I hope this was a good enough distraction." You joke, voice light. 

"It was." He says, eyes pinning you to your spot. 

"Good. Thanks for helping with the gun even though you were condescending about it." you try again, having to force the levity into your voice and feeling slightly desperate to break the tension. 

"Mhm." He says. A beat passes and he finally moves, turning away from you. You reach out and grab his wrist like a vice, surprising both him and yourself. You feel like if you let this moment pass you'll regret it for the foreseeable future. 

He stares at you for a second before taking a step closer, breathing out slowly when you do the same. He raises a hesitant hand and slides it under your jaw, watching you lean into it. You both move forward at once, pressing your lips together with a desperate movement. Your hand moves from his wrist and you grip his jacket, pulling him in closer. His other hand moves to rest on your waist. He strokes your cheek with his thumb and you shiver slightly, tilting your head even further into his palm and letting yourself be kissed. 

His lips are firm and his hand is warm where it cradles your face. He pulls back after a moment but you go back in, pressing a few more kisses to his lips and one to his jaw. He moves his other hand down to your waist as well, anchoring you to your spot. "We should probably stop." he says, voice gravelly.

You press one more kiss to the corner of his mouth and pull back, letting your hands drop. "Was that...okay?" You ask, suddenly unsure. 

"More than." He says, emphatic. "I just…..really? _Me?"_

"Really." You say, unable to help the smile that tugs your lips up. 

"I just wouldn't have thought…"

"Where's that obnoxious Harry confidence now?" You tease, poking him once in the chest. 

He laughs softly despite himself, rubbing at the back of his neck. "I find that my obnoxious confidence rarely comes in handy when it comes to affairs of the heart." 

"Shame." You say, swaying forwards on your feet. "You have a lot to be confident about." 

His eyes are dark. "I care about you, Y/N. A lot. I know I don't really show it, but…" 

"I care about you too." You say, looking down shyly. "---Even though you do legitimately drive me insane half of the time." 

"I could say the same for you, you know." he says. 

"I'm okay with it as long as I get to kiss you more." You say decisively, watching his dimples grace his face as he smiles. 

"That can be arranged." 

**Author's Note:**

> I would normally make this longer/add more detail and stuff but I wanted to get it uploaded before the end of the day. Hope you enjoyed!


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